by Rachel Lu | Oct 16, 2022 | IDES 141 | 0 comments

Inspiration

The museum exhibit project pushed my skills. I chose to illustrate Rococo-style dress as my artifact since I have an affinity for overly extravagant things. Attempting to create an exhibit proved challenging as I was never attentive to museum exhibition layouts. I recalled that I had the opportunity to visit Guo Pei’s fashion exhibition at the Vancouver art gallery a while back. I took inspiration from her exhibit and “Dangerous Liaisons” from the Metropolitan Museum. Analyzing Rococo portraiture was particularly helpful as well. Francois Boucher’s “Madame de Pompadour” was the primary reference to the mannequin’s pose and dress.

Guo Pei's Fashion Exhibit at the Asian Civilizations Museum

Image source:

Dangerous Liaisons - Metropolitan Museum

Image source:

https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2004/dangerous-liaisons/photo-gallery

Madame De Pompadour - François Boucher c. 1756

Image source:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/François_Boucher

Process

The project took me around ~30 hours to illustrate and ~20 hours to research. There were countless revisions I had to do as I was unsure how to approach my exhibit’s layout. Initially, I wanted to put the artifact in a glass case. However, I realized it was too static and had no visual appeal. I decided to create a simplified scene to establish the setting of it being the 18th century. Additionally, I decided to contrast the ornate nature of the Rococo Era with a modern twist by pairing Zapifino with Futura. I figured that having a cursive display font with a contemporary typeface for the body paragraph would balance each other and not make the design too modern or overstimulating

Process pictures

It was daunting having to work with type for the first time. There was a learning curve when using Illustrator; however, I am glad I pushed myself to try and explore digital software. Overall, having everything digital feels more cohesive and clean. Working digitally is something I want to move towards in the future since I think it’s easier to visualize layouts and provide examples of things such as museum designs or anything with type.